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Thursday, 1 August 2013

The Pink Hotel by Anna Stothard and Giveaway

About the book

The Pink
Hotel was first published on 18th April 2011 by Alma Books. It is
300 pages long. Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy.

Plot Synopsis

After her
estranged mother Lily dies, her seventeen year old daughter flies to Los
Angeles from London for the funeral. After she manages to steal a suitcase full
of letters, random items of clothing and photographs from her mother’s bedroom
in a pink hotel, it sets her on a mission to find out more about who she really
is. Spending the summer roaming around LA, Lily’s life is slowly revealed and
her daughter begins to realise she is more like her than she once thought.

What I thought

This isn’t
the usual sort of book that would be called young adult, but it is. I was
looking forward to reading something a bit different.

Something
quite strange about this book is that the protagonist never gets named. Maybe
because it is told in the first person from the teenager’s perspective, who
knows. Even though her name is never mentioned, she was a wonderful character
to read about. Being left by her mother at the age of three had a massive
impact on her life as she was left to be brought up by her father. She’s also
not a girly girl at all and loves things such as football and getting into
fights. The lack of a motherly figure in her life was so clear to see. Even
though she never really knew her mother, I really liked that she still wanted
to go to the funeral and to see what her mother was like.

For a girl
her age, going all the way to LA on her own with no one there to greet her must
have been quite a scary thing. Not only that, but it doesn’t seem as though any
of her mother’s friends knew anything about her or that she even existed.
Quickly, the book becomes a mystery novel as the daughter searches for
information about her mother and to find out what her life was really liked.
The mystery elements were written so well that it didn’t really come across as
something to be solved. The daughter plods along throughout the book, going
from one person to the next trying to find out certain things and carrying
around a suitcase full of her dead mother’s belongings.

Anna
Stothard brings in some amazing characters in The Pink Hotel. Lily led quite a
strange and crazy life during her time and this meant knowing such a range of
people. Although Lily is much younger than most of the people that Lily knew,
she somehow manages to get in close with a few of them. I really liked the
moments of the daughter getting to know the people in Lily’s life, even if they
didn’t know anything about her. Characters include drunks, addicts and
criminals who are all people so far from who the daughter is used to having to
deal with. This brings out extreme changes in her character as she realises that
she may be more like her mother.

The Pink
Hotel is unlike any other book I have read. While the plot isn’t exciting in the
traditional sense, I couldn’t stop reading. Stothard brings in a side of LA that
is never really shown, she writes characters who you shouldn’t like but do and
she also writes a very gripping story. If you’re looking for something a little
different then this one would be worth a try.

I'm also giving away a copy of this book as the publisher was nice enough to send me 2 copies! The giveaway is open to UK residents only and will run for 1 week. The winner has 48 hours to reply to the notifying email before another winner will be picked.